Yesterday an email, purportedly from Apple's CEO Tim Cook made the rounds in response to a reader query about the lack of any significant updates to the Mac Pro. Worries of Apple abandoning its only remaining traditional desktop form factor were rampant over the past year, however the email seemed to put those concerns to rest. Apple just confirmed the email below indeed came from Tim Cook:

Franz,

Thanks for your email. Our Pro customers like you are really important to us. Although we didn't have a chance to talk about a new Mac Pro at today's event, don't worry as we're working on something really great for later next year. We also updated the current model today.

We've been continuing to update Final Cut Pro X with revolutionary pro features like industry leading multi-cam support and we just updated Aperture with incredible new image adjustment features.

We also announced a MacBook Pro with a Retina Display that is a great solution for many pros.

Tim

I'll refrain from speculating about why Apple is waiting until next year for something really great. I do hope it has to do with Haswell though. Update: As you guys correctly pointed out in the comments, there's no good Thunderbolt strategy for the Xeon platform just yet. Apple's stance on USB 3 points to a corporate desire to maintain simplicity and uniformity across all product lines. Without processor graphics there's no clean way to route DisplayPort through Thunderbolt on a Xeon platform just yet. At some point processor graphics will come to the Xeon however...

Note that there haven't been any announcements made regarding the next iMac. Ivy Bridge was clearly a mobile targeted part (and Apple is a mobile dominated company), thus it's not surprising to see the first Ivy based systems from Apple were notebooks.

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19 Comments

It's Apple who cares about the internal cleanliness of the Mac Pro - I think they even talk about it on the Mac Pro product page. The entire point of my point was to say why Apple, not me, might have delayed refreshing the Mac Pro. Apple cares about aesthetics.

And I'm baffled why you think a concern about the internals of a case is limited to Apple. Man high end PC boutiques make a point of advertising how clean their wiring inside the case is. It's also a concern for many DIY builders. And FYI, I don't know a Mac - my PC siting on the floor is a Lian Li case with parts put together myself. Perhaps you might learn to stop making assumptions and post something useful next time.Reply

Isn't the "must" part of "must also carry DisplayPort video" a little overstated? You can have an active Thunderbolt cable that isn't carrying video data.

The usage scenarios for Mac Pros are different vs. laptops. A Mac Pro is a big machine that sits in one place. An external monitor is a requirement, not an option. Consolidating the cables might be nice from an aesthetic point of view, but it's not an imperative like with laptops (especially MBA/Ultrabooks). Apple just needs to add Thunderbolt to the Mac Pro motherboards for stuff like external HDD's and whatever other Thunderbolt peripherals come out. Connecting to a monitor can be handled through the GPU like usual, whether by Thunderbolt, DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI, or VGA. But in general, Thunderbolt is less useful for the desktop than for the laptop -- there is no need for external GPUs, etc. when you've already got a few PCIe slots available internally.Reply

Haswell is unlikely for the Mac Pro but may be appropriate for the iMac. It still seems odd to think Apple would skip Ivy Bridge for the iMac while waiting for Haswell. Apple did take five months after Intel launched Sandy Bridge to move the iMac line to it so there is precedent for Apple taking its time - it's still within that five month window since Ivy Bridge launched in April. Apple also refreshed its iMac right before the holiday season back in October 2009 so perhaps it'll combine both the 5-month wait and a late year holiday launch and introducing Ivy Bridge iMacs in October 2012.

And in fact, Macrumors is now reporting that Apple PR has clarified that reports that it said both the Mac Pro and iMac would likely be refreshed in 2013 only applied to the Mac Pro and not the iMac. So I think we can expect Ivy Bridge iMacs in autumn 2012.

It wasn't so obvious because the initial reporting by NYT's David Pogue and Forbes said they were told by an Apple executive and Apple PR, respectively, that both the Mac Pro and iMac would be updated in 2013. That caused some confusion and consternation which has since been clarified.Reply

I honestly don't see the point of Ivy Bridge for the iMac- they all have dedicated graphics anyway, and graphics performance is the only real advantage that Ivy has over Sandy for the desktop set. We'll see a refresh, but it'll be on AMD/NVidia's schedule- not Intel's.Reply

" honestly don't see the point of Ivy Bridge for the iMac- they all have dedicated graphics anyway, and graphics performance is the only real advantage that Ivy has over Sandy for the desktop set"

It's inevitable anyhow. Once production is fully ramped up the chips are cheaper for Intel to make, so that is primarily what will be available.

For the OEM's like Apple...Although only slightly faster and slightly better with power, its 100% pin compatible, so no redesign is needed. Just pop in the new CPU and you have a new SKU. Better to have it than to not have it since its a no-brainer to implement ,a bit faster and a bit more efficient... There is no downside. Reply